Chapter 13
"I let you go off for one day, and look at the trouble you get into," Luxa said.
"I bet I know somebody else who's in trouble," Gregor croaked with a smile.
"Much trouble," he heard Mareth say behind him. Gregor didn't have to turn his head to see the soldier's expression. He was angry.
"I cannot go back," Luxa said with satisfaction. "It is too far now, and Aurora and I would most surely perish in the deep."
"Yes, you timed that nicely," said Mareth.
"I know," said Luxa.
"I know you know. Everyone will know you knew if you ever arrive home in one piece to tell the tale," said Mareth. Gregor had never thought much about Mareth's relationship with Luxa. She was his queen, or would be when she turned sixteen, but there was another side to it he recognized after the day of training. Mareth was her coach, and he wasn't afraid to chew her out.
"Oh, Mareth, how long are you to stay angry with me?" said Luxa. "It has been at least a day already. No one will blame you for my disobedience."
"That is much beside the point, Luxa!" barked Mareth. "This venture is extremely dangerous, and what if you die? You leave Regalia with Nerissa as a leader, and she is of age. Can you imagine what will happen then? To Regalia? To Nerissa?"
"She will have to abdicate," Howard said from somewhere in the other boat.
"She will do no such thing. She will rule if I die and not Vikus, and never you and your wretched sister!" said Luxa.
There was a shocked silence. Then Howard spoke. "Is this what you think? That I want to be king? I believe you have me confused with another cousin."
Ouch. It was another allusion to Henry. But this time, Gregor thought Luxa might have had it coming.
"And do not judge me by Stellovet. She is wretched. I admit it. But I can no more control her than you could control Henry!" Howard spat out.
"If you think I will believe you innocent, I will not. I have seen you torment Nerissa," said Luxa.
"When? When did I do this? I have barely spent five minutes with her altogether!" said Howard.
"At the festival. When you set that lizard at her!" said Luxa.
"Set it? I did not set it! That was a rare color changer, and I thought it would amuse her to see it!" said Howard.
"But Henry said he saw you — !" began Luxa.
"Henry said? Henry said? I cannot believe that even now you do not question things that Henry said, Luxa! Is he the one who told you I was after your crown?" Howard's voice rose in frustration. "Henry said!"
"Shh. Too loud. You like Fo-Fo," he heard Boots say.
"It is Photos Glow-Glow!" said an offended voice in the next boat.
"Oh, be quiet, Fo-Fo," said Twitchtip, and Gregor had to pretend to cough to conceal he was laughing.
Boots's feet pattered up by Gregor's head. She leaned over, looking upside down at him. "Hi, you!"
"Hi, you," said Gregor. "What's going on, Boots?"
"I do toes. Whew! I do bekfast. Two times," Boots said, holding up four fingers. She squatted down and pressed her nose into his forehead so their eyes were blinking at each other upside down. "I see you," she said.
"I see you, too," said Gregor.
"Bye," Boots said, and trotted off to the other end of the boat.
Gregor struggled to a sitting position. His whole body ached like he had the flu. He leaned against the side of the boat and looked at his bandaged arm. "So, what's it look like under the bandage?"
"It is not for the faint of heart," said Mareth. "You may thank Howard for saving your arm."
"Saving it? You were going to cut it off?" Gregor asked, instinctively pulling it closer.
"We would have had no choice if the venom spread further, but Howard was able to suck it from the wounds," said Mareth.
"Ugh. Thanks, Howard," Gregor said, gingerly flexing his fingers. Luxa scowled at him. "What? He sucked venom from my arm! I can't say thank you?"
"I am trained in water aid. I have sworn to save anyone in peril related to the water," said Howard.
"If my cousin had been paying attention that night, there would be no need to be so grateful," said Luxa.
Gregor remembered waking, seeing the tentacle...."No, it was my fault. I was supposed to be on guard and I...I fell asleep." He felt ashamed to admit it, but it wasn't fair to let Howard take the blame.
Everyone was quiet for a minute, then Mareth spoke up. "We probably would still have been attacked. But it is crucial to stay awake on guard. Not only our own survival, but that of many hangs on this journey."
It was even worse than Gregor thought, then. "Sorry. I was tired, but I thought I could stay awake."
"It is something you learn, how to stand guard. There are tricks to keeping your mind alert. You will find them," said Howard. But Luxa and Mareth said nothing, and Gregor knew that, for them, what he had done was inexcusable. Howard came from the Fount; it was not so dangerous there. Luxa and Mareth had fought too many rats to let him off the hook.
Mareth called a break for dinner. Gregor was famished. He stuffed way too much in his mouth, choked, and had to take a piece of bread back out. "Excuse me. I guess I haven't eaten since dinner last night."
"That was two nights ago," said Howard. "You have been out for almost two full days."
"Two days!" exclaimed Gregor. He had never been out that long before. Two days, plus the one he had traveled. They must be at least halfway to the Bane, and he felt no more prepared to face it than when he had left Regalia. He should be doing something! He thought about asking Mareth to give him a few more sword lessons, but he was so wiped out from the squid venom, he doubted he could lift the sword.
Besides, hitting things with a sword didn't seem to be his problem. In fact, if anything, he couldn't stop hitting things. It was like something took over his whole being, something beyond his control.
In a weak attempt to better his chances with the Bane, he lay on his back for a while, practicing echo-location. Click! But his mind kept going back to the squid and how he hadn't been able to stop hacking away at it. He couldn't really even remember fighting it, the same way he couldn't really remember hitting all the blood balls. Click! Sometimes that happened to people who were crazy....They had blank spots and couldn't remember how they'd gotten somewhere or what they'd been doing. Click! Oh, and there was that guy in that werewolf movie, same thing happened to him. He'd just wake up all bloody, wondering what had happened to his clothes. Click! Gregor knew there weren't really werewolves. Click! Then again, how did he know that? If you'd asked him six months ago, he'd have said there weren't giant, talking rats!
Click! Click! Click!
He was getting nowhere with this echolocation stuff. Maybe Ripred was right, he had to focus. But who could focus when they were in the middle of an underground sea, full of squid venom, on their way to killing a monstrous white rat? Not him.
Gregor sat up and saw Luxa sitting nearby, sharpening her sword on some kind of stone.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"Better since I ate," said Gregor.
Luxa tested the edge of her blade by splitting a strand of rope. She frowned in dissatisfaction and continued to work on it.
"That looks pretty sharp to me," said Gregor.
"Not sharp enough for what lies ahead of us," said Luxa. "It is doubtful many of us will survive."
"So why did you come?" asked Gregor.
"I thought you might need my help. You have depended on it before," said Luxa. "And Aurora and I, we have Ares to think of as well."
While all of that might be true, Gregor had a feeling there was more going on inside Luxa. "Is that all?"
"Is that not enough?" Luxa asked, avoiding his gaze.
"Sure, I just thought, well, maybe it had something to do with..." Gregor stopped himself.
"With what?" said Luxa.
"With nothing," said Gregor. "Forget it."
"I can hardly forget it now," said Luxa. "Why else would I come?"
"Because of Henry. I mean, if I were you, I might come to show people I wasn't like him. I might come to make Stellovet shut up," said Gregor.
Luxa didn't admit that what he said was right, but she didn't deny it, either.
"So, what's the deal with who gets to be king and queen here?" Gregor asked after a while.
"My father's family has been on the throne for some time. As his only child, I am to rule next. If I have children, the oldest will follow me," said Luxa.
"Even if it's a girl and she has brothers?" Gregor thought that girls only got to rule if there were no boys in the family.
"Oh, yes. Girls have equal claim to the throne," said Luxa. "If I have no children, the crown will go to Nerissa. But she is the last in our line. So if she dies, or abdicates without children, Regalia will have to choose a new royal family."
"And Stellovet thinks it will be her family," said Gregor.
"She is probably right. Vikus and Solovet will be the most likely choice. Their oldest child, my aunt Susannah, would follow. And then her children, my Fount cousins. Howard is the eldest," said Luxa.
"Sounds like Stellovet's a long way from being queen, anyway," said Gregor.
"Not as long as you might think. Not in the Underland," said Luxa.
The bats, who had been out flying around, came in for bedtime. Mareth put Howard's red bat, Pandora, and Ares on guard. Gregor had a feeling he wasn't going to be assigned that duty for a while.
Twitchtip was restless. "Something's not right," she said. She lifted her nose into the air, and her head made an involuntary jerk to the side.
"Is it more squid?" Gregor asked, looking into the deep.
"No, it's not animal. But something's not right," she repeated.
"In what way?" asked Ares.
"With the water," she said.
"Is it tainted? Frigid? Filled with debris?" asked Howard.
"No," said Twitchtip. "I'd recognize those things. It's something I don't have a word for." But she could not explain further, so there was nothing to do but settle down to an uneasy sleep.
A few hours later, Gregor awoke to the sound of rushing water and Howard's frantic voice screaming the word that Twitchtip didn't have:
"Whirlpool!"